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My brothers and I used to fish for trout when we visited our grandparents in the Poconos, in Pennsylvania. If my siblings read this, they’ll insist that they were fishing and I was merely watching. It’s true that after a few years I started feeling sorry for the fish and didn’t want to catch them anymore. (This didn’t stop me from eating them.)

Trout frying hasn’t changed a huge amount since colonial times. Here’s a 1753 recipe from The Ladies’ Companion, reprinted in The Williamsburg Art of Cookery:

“You must, with a Knife, gently scrape off all the Slime from your Fish, wash them in Salt and Water, gut them, and wipe them very clean with a Linnen Cloth; that done, strew Flour over them, and fry them in sweet Butter, till they are brown and crisp; then take them out of the Frying-pan, and lay them on a Pewter Dish, well-heated before the Fire…. Continue reading →

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Freelance writer and editor Karen Hammonds describes her adventures in preparing historic recipes based on those in old American cookbooks. She is a former editor at WeightWatchers.com and has written for a blog at Saveur.com.